Kind of, except that if you throw your funds at a grassroots candidate, you’re helping to give them the ability to convince other people to vote for them in the actual election, and you could choose to (for example) give all of your funding to that grassroots candidate but still vote strategically in the general.
I think it’s quite reasonable to want to promote a third party candidate and help them get a foot in the door, while recognizing that they don’t have a real chance to win the election this time around. Sometimes voting against a candidate is what’s important. However, I’m not going to get into the strategic voting debate right now, can we at least wait until late October to be at each others’ throats about this shit again?
I can see the idea. We don’t really have “third party candidates” here in Sweden, but we do have parties governing on like a city, regional, and state level, and you elect to all three.
State has a bar you need to get past to have a seat, and I’d love to see the pirate party gain a good foothold. I’m unlikely to vote for them because they just don’t do much visible work, so I’ll vote for the left or the environmentalists since they are established and visible.
If the pirate party had more funds, maybe they’d be more visible and have a bigger chance to make a change.
Yeah, that’s it exactly. I’d like to be able to help promote the candidate I’d really like to get elected, but I don’t feel good about voting for them until they get some wide-spread recognition. I already donate money to candidates I don’t intend to vote for for that reason; our two-party system (in the US) is obviously awful but pretending it doesn’t exist and that a vote for a candidate that will end up with 5% of the total vote isn’t wasted is just helping the party I’m least likely to vote for to win.
Kind of, except that if you throw your funds at a grassroots candidate, you’re helping to give them the ability to convince other people to vote for them in the actual election, and you could choose to (for example) give all of your funding to that grassroots candidate but still vote strategically in the general.
Wait so you want to promote one candidate, while voting for another?
Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of the campaign anyway?
I think it’s quite reasonable to want to promote a third party candidate and help them get a foot in the door, while recognizing that they don’t have a real chance to win the election this time around. Sometimes voting against a candidate is what’s important. However, I’m not going to get into the strategic voting debate right now, can we at least wait until late October to be at each others’ throats about this shit again?
I can see the idea. We don’t really have “third party candidates” here in Sweden, but we do have parties governing on like a city, regional, and state level, and you elect to all three.
State has a bar you need to get past to have a seat, and I’d love to see the pirate party gain a good foothold. I’m unlikely to vote for them because they just don’t do much visible work, so I’ll vote for the left or the environmentalists since they are established and visible.
If the pirate party had more funds, maybe they’d be more visible and have a bigger chance to make a change.
Yeah, that’s it exactly. I’d like to be able to help promote the candidate I’d really like to get elected, but I don’t feel good about voting for them until they get some wide-spread recognition. I already donate money to candidates I don’t intend to vote for for that reason; our two-party system (in the US) is obviously awful but pretending it doesn’t exist and that a vote for a candidate that will end up with 5% of the total vote isn’t wasted is just helping the party I’m least likely to vote for to win.